Sure, we’ve come a long way since the first telephones were introduced into our homes and revolutionized communications throughout the world. Yet somehow as technology has progressed and we have a cell phone in every pocket (or ear with the clip-on blue toothers among us, seriously, stop it!) we have lost touch not only with our fellow humans, but with our manners and common sense as well.

Having worked in customer service for what seems like my entire life, manners are a given for me. They are freer than water afterall and we should use them with wild abandon! I feel that everyone should be treated with the same level of respect and dignity. I have had jobs where the entirety of my days were spent on the phone. I was always held to a strict call back timeline when a call went to voicemail, even when I was on my luch break. Certainly the company standard of calling someone back within two hours was reasonable. My department had an unwritten rule of getting back to people within one hour and I never had a problem with this myself.

What is truly strange to me is that in this day and age, with everyone communication so damned quickly, not only are we not listening to each other or sharing anything of value in all of these fast-paced conversations, we’ve lost what used to be some exciting: Returning a phone call!

I remember as a kid (not that long ago, darlings) getting a phone call and being comepletely elated by that fact alone! And the excitement of returning said phone call was the utmost of priveledges! Yet as I have been working my tail off trying to open this tiny little cafe of mine I have left hundreds of voicemail messages for so many people and I have to say that I have found that only about 1% ever return my call!

This is alarming! It’s also a terrible way to conduct a business, let alone run a city/county/etc. What happened to us? Did the sudden posibility of limitless communications drive us to a state of an overwhelming lack of caring? Where is the urgency? Where is the customer service? Certainly if someone both calls and emails you simultaneously, they obviously need to talk to you about something and, gee, do you think you can take thirty seconds out of your day to return their call/email?

Somehow we are lost as a society in this massive ocean of emails and voicemails. I have friends who will respond to a text instantly, but won’t notice that they even have a voicemail message requiring their attention for days! What the hell?! Forgive me for being a stickler, but that’s ridiculous and rude! Why bother even giving out a phone number if you have no intention using the simple features you insisted come with it?

Now we have the internet and a hundred-million fun applications in the palm of our hands, yet returning a simple voicemail message is somehow beyond our means. Well, this gal simply won’t follow suit! I refuse to turn into the rude, obnoxious and comepletly self-centered jerks who insist upon this continued behavior. It’s unacceptable and I will call you out on it! I simply expect more because I give more, dammit! Having such technologies is a priviledge and should not be taken so fucking lightly!

Be happy you have all of the things you have and act grateful for once, it could all evaporate tomorrow!